WWE Releases

It’s that time of the year, guys.  Usually sometime in May the WWE releases some people.  When I got back in during 2012 they were in the middle of winding down the first brand split and didn’t need as many people.  That continued on for the next couple of years but then in 2016 the new brand split started so they started signing lots of people until by 2019 the roster was overstuffed again and has required some yearly space clearing, which has been going on every year since 2020 save for 2022.

As always there are some surprising names mixed with some not surprising ones.  But it always sucks to see someone you’ve become a fan of be let go, and as I’ve gotten older I feel a genuine sense of empathy for even the ones I’m not individually a fan of.  I don’t have to be a fan of yours for you to be able to make a living in the wrestling business, or any other form of entertainment. These are real people with real bills to pay and real families to take care of, them losing their jobs is not some trivial thing. 

Main Roster

• Braun Strowman
• Dakota Kai
• Shayna Baszler
• Kayden Carter & Katana Chance
• Shotzi (contract not renewed)

My takes:

Braun Strowman is surprising but not shocking to me. If you’ve watched him lately you can see that his knees are powder and he can barely run around the ring – he recently ran down his list of injuries and one is ‘partially paralyzed leg’, so yeah. I did think at this point he was a made enough guy that even if they had to limit his activity he’d stick around. Braun’s tenure has always been a bone of contention in the IWC; in 2017 and 2018 there was very strong sentiment for him being crowned Universal Champion and given a run as the top guy. It didn’t happen then and his only turn at bat came during the pandemic. Was management’s cold feet justified? I kinda say yes but I don’t think he would have sunk the company or anything. We’ll never know for sure. Releasing him makes sense but that doesn’t mean they were going to actually do it.

Dakota was very unlucky with injuries both in NXT and on the main roster, then once Iyo became a legit singles act this year she was on shaky ground. Their chance to really try something with her was to crown her the first IC champ; when they passed on that things began to take a turn. She had a few weeks where she challenged inaugural champ Lyra Valkyria for the title but hadn’t wrestled on TV since March 17 so there was cause for concern. Dakota has always been a personal favorite of mine since NXT so this one stings and I so badly wish she had gotten to do more. I don’t like the decision but I could see where things were heading when she recently tweeted that she missed wrestling and was not injured. She reportedly has some people ready to bring her aboard so I’m looking forward to where she lands, be it AEW or somewhere else.

Shayna had two chances for them to give her a stronger push: going into WrestleMania 36 after her big Elimination Chamber win and coming out of Summerslam 2023 after she beat Ronda Rousey and ran her out of the territory. In both cases, they chose not to. Outside of that she had a good run as tag champs with Nia Jax but otherwise never got further than a temporary heat up so she could put someone over. Do I think Shayna was a main event level talent? No. Her in ring style could be a little boring depending on the opponent and there’s the elephant in the room that she doesn’t look like the women that WWE pushes big. But I do think there was a singles title reign or two that they could have gotten out of her on the main roster. They just re-signed her last year; unless there’s some undisclosed injury then there’s no issue that exists today that wasn’t there last year so yeah, it’s a bit puzzling to me.

Kayden & Katana were barely on TV this year and outside of a brief run as women’s tag champs in early 2024 they were jobbers.  They didn’t do anything on TV that can’t be replicated by someone else. So no, not surprised here at all.  They’d be a great fit in the TNA Knockouts tag team division for sure.

Shotzi is another ‘what if?’ Like a lot of you I first saw her on the Evolve special that aired in 2019 on the WWE Network, and was excited to hear that she’d signed full time with WWE and was going to NXT later that year. She had a pretty good run in NXT but things never really clicked for her on the main roster. They tried her as both a babyface and a heel from 2021 to 2023, but she never really progressed beyond being a sidekick or midlevel heel and never seemed to put it together as far as main roster level ringwork, and by that I mean that she wasn’t able to adapt her crazy daredevil style from the indies to WWE main roster. And then she got injured in early 2024 just when she was finally starting to get some traction, having been in a main roster Womens’ Wargames match in 2023. She made it back and was working on NXT up until a week or so ago, but then released a self made video at the end of April that more or less signaled to us all that she was being let go. I understand the release but she was fun and a unique TV character so I wish they did keep her.

NXT

• Cora Jade
• Oro Mensah & Jakara Jackson
• Gigi Dolin
• Eddy Thorpe
• Javier Bernal
• Riley Osborne
• Gallus
• Dani Palmer

The big surprise here is Cora Jade.  Jade has always been treated like somebody important in NXT even though she never won a singles title and hadn’t won much since returning from her knee injury.  I figured she’d be up to the main roster later this year and not released outright.  I imagine she will be showing up on Dynamite in about a month or so.

Jakara Jackson falls in the surprised but not shocked category for me.  I thought she and Lash Legend would be coming up as a team given their good showings over the past few months.  But once Meta Four split up out of the blue last Tuesday I got concerned, and ended up being right to do so. Like a lot of you I thought she was showing some real growth and potential but HHH apparently felt differently.

Gigi was there since 2021, so a decision had to be made to either bring her up or move on.  She’s good as part of a group or team but hadn’t really distinguished herself as an individual.   I had her figured as a maybe due to how long she’d been there so I’m not totally shocked here.

Javier Bernal didn’t do anything of note in the two or three years he was there so no surprise.  Gallus hadn’t been around much lately so not a total surprise.  Eddy is a little bit of a surprise seeing as how he was just recently in some big matches and got a win over Trick Williams at an NXT Takeover show.  Riley Osborne was on the clock once the original Chase U lineup was disbanded (releasing him while he’s injured is wack, though), and Meta Four’s breakup sealed it for Oro Mensah.

And finally, Dani Palmer had a lot of injury problems and has decided to end her time in the business altogether. So no surprise there.

BIG TAKEAWAYS

(H/T to pwrestlingg on IG for the photos in this piece)

This is really bad news for the women’s tag team division. These releases have eliminated four teams in one fell swoop.  Throw in the breakup of the Big 3 (Bianca Belair, Jade Cargill and Naomi) and the division has been all but wiped out in just two months. And with one half of the current champs Liv Morgan scheduled to be out for a month filming a movie then we’re looking at another possibility of having the belts be dormant for a while. With rumors of an Evolution 2 PLE being announced, it’s pretty ironic to ditch nine women who have been featured fairly regularly on WWE TV over the past year. 

This round of releases was also accompanied by some Dave Meltzer water carrying for somebody inside the company that fed him some particularly harsh commentary on the NXT releases (essentially calling them lazy), which led to a couple of retorts from Jade and Dolin on X. That’s uncalled for as far as I’m concerned. It’s also a head scratcher as to why they always do this on a Friday right before Smackdown. Yes, I know that it is an attempt at the proverbial Friday news dump but not once has it ever worked out that way for them. Instead, it always hangs a cloud over Smackdown that night that makes it harder to watch because everyone online is only talking about the releases. And in this case there were a few names that have loyal online followings and/or made little sense to those of us at home, so no way this was going to just blow over.

Releases are a part of sports, be they real life sports or even a fictional one like pro wrestling. At the end of the day all we can do is demand that they be administered in an ethical fashion and handled properly by all involved. And for God’s sake don’t do the ‘why didn’t ___ get released instead?’ thing. Again, these are real people and not video game characters. I wish the best to everyone who was let go, and hope to see them in action again soon. Some will undoubtedly be back one day – Jade is 24, Gigi is 27, Jakara 30, and Shotzi 33. Dakota is a little older at 36 but I hope she’ll get another shot because I think she can at least stick as a midcard champion and I’d just like to see it.